My local church was the Port Kembla Baptist Church where we regularly had guest "missionary" speakers who relayed the most enthralling stories of those under their spiritual charge coming to personal faith in Jesus Christ.
Moreover, I was an avid reader of books by missionaries and how they related time and again, how the Spirit of the Lord touched people's lives as they presented the Salvation message of Jesus Christ.
These were very fulfilling youthful years as I dreamed of a future not so much of work or sporting success (although they came to me in some measure through committed dedication to the task), but rather how the Lord Jesus might use my life in similar ways to these wonderful stories I enjoyed as my constant diet of religious books.
One book I enjoyed immensely in this period was of 5 great Christian leaders of the 17th century, people like preacher William Grimshaw who went to one English village with a wheeled cart and the people, who had never seen such a vehicle, bought out hay to feed it.
Another was of an African SIM doctor missionary who through his medical knowledge and service to the Lord, changed for the better thousands upon thousands of lives both physically and through his missionary endeavours, their eternal destination.
www.sim.org.au
One of the elderly ladies I visited in those years was widow Sylvia Hall who, with her late husband Dick, had been an Open Air Campaigner for 20 years. The remarkable stories that were recounted over a coffee were simply spell-binding and they inspired me to seek the Lord as to my life and destiny.
In those years as a sporting person I would often wonder why our Australian professional sports did not have Christian pastors serving as team chaplains, as was common in the top sports teams in the USA. I questioned in my heart why Heads of Churches had not sought out such appointments, not realising that the Lord would call me to this task and establish our own faith financed mission in this endeavour.
Throughout my Christian life I've enjoyed reading these Salvation stories and sometimes under very unique circumstances the Lord brings to notice remarkable Salvation experiences.
A recent one was the Chilean mine disaster where many of the miners gave their lives to Jesus Christ and months later visited the Holy Land to witness several baptisms in the Jordan River.
www.assistnews.net/Stories/2011/s11030030.htm
In our own ministry we have not only individual people respond to Jesus' Salvation, but also entire families. It is a joy unbounded as God's Spirit touched their lives.
Salvation stories are entwined to 1 John 5 verse 13: " .. that you may know that you have eternal life .."